Even the default color tag functionality as available in ApolloOne (I am using Ventura) would be better than not having tags at all. If I tag an image using a default color label in ApolloOne, the tag is functional in Finder and also in other photo apps such as Affinity and On1 Photo Raw.
ApolloOne does permit changing label names to make them the same as custom labels from Finder but most other photo apps only accept the default color labels so custom labels are not that useful anyway in the context of photo browsers.